DoD Admits Defeat on Global PCS Move Privatization
The Department of Defense has given up on a plan to privatize military permanent change of station (PCS) moves, and those who expected to PCS in 2025 or 2026 under a new, more efficient PCS program? They will have to deal with the legacy system the DoD once tried to abandon.
DoD Admits Defeat on Global PCS Move Privatization
The federal government has made multiple attempts to privatize functions like the administration of on-base housing and other essential services. In multiple cases, these privatization efforts have resulted in harm to military families, medical claims, and class-action lawsuits.
There have been multiple lawsuits over such issues related to life in privatized military family housing at certain military bases.
In recent years, the DoD’s privatization efforts extended to finding a single contractor for PCS moves. The government received unsatisfactory results from the contractor’s (HomeSafe Alliance) efforts, including broken promises, failure to deliver basic services, and ultimately, the failure of the contract.
Now, the Department of Defense has admitted defeat on the plan to privatize the military’s PCS system.
Privatized PCS Contract Failure
Earlier in 2025, the Secretary of Defense announced the termination of the failed Global Household Goods Contract with HomeSafe Alliance, a $20 billion failure originally intended to upgrade the permanent change of station move process. But that was only the start of the complications for DoD officials.
In October 2025, the entire privatization plan was scrapped. Defense Department officials claim the existing system will be reviewed and overhauled instead.
Why the DoD didn’t do this in the first place, sparing taxpayers a $20 billion price tag for an utter failure to privatize the system is a question that remains unanswered at press time.
Good Intentions, Poor Performance
As reported by the Military Family Association, the privatization of PCS moves was “…intended to fix a fragmented system plagued by lost shipments, delays, and inconsistent service” with a contract awarded to HomeSafe Alliance “…to consolidate oversight and create accountability for PCS moves.”
The move is the end of an attempt to hand over PCS moves to a private contractor. DoD officials claim there’s a new three-year effort to improve the legacy PCS program they previously tried to abandon as insufficient. Will they succeed? There were reasons the DoD wanted to terminate the legacy program in the first place, and those issues must be addressed going forward.
To do this, the DoD claims the first step is to create a so-called “government-controlled software solution” which would hypothetically streamline the PCS process.
The DoD claims it plans to conduct a market study to establish fair rates for contractors and establish a network of them for PCS moves.
The directive from the Secretary of Defense is informed by the findings of a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) Joint Task Force established to study the current problems with military moves.
Uncertain Future for PCS Moves
Some sources report that the government’s move to “unprivatize” the PCS move system is popular with the companies that may be asked to perform the work. One moving company representative went on the record saying the move could “…restore stability and trust for military families and moving companies alike.”
In the meantime, the future of the military’s PCS system is unclear. The Military Family Association reports that many families “reported being forced into Personally Procured Moves (PPMs)—moving themselves—due to HomeSafe’s limited network. While reimbursement for PPMs is still calculated at 100% of the Government Constructed Cost (GCC), that amount has been significantly reduced…” because of nuances in the now-dead Global Household Goods Contract. What happens now that the contract is terminated?
At press time, it is unclear what happens to PCS moves in the interim. This is an ongoing story.
About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
